The United States military's information warfare operations are failing in Iraq, according to a study from Fort Leavenworth. In "Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong?" Major Joseph Cox sees the problems largely caused by underresourcing, leading to poor integration of information operations (IO) into regular warfighting. Problematic intelligence - not exactly a new problem for this war - also saps IO, according to Cox.
This is a nice formulation for practical IO: "influence, inform, attack and protect" (10). The first two refer to populations, the latter to IO assets.
Here's a common-sense suggestion, which draws on one IO book I reviewed earlier:
Provide IO officers opportunity to participate in Train-with-Industry programs. Civilian public relations firms have a wealth of knowledge the army must access to be able to effectively shape the information environment.
I'm surprised nobody's used that for satirical purposes yet.
(via Abu Aardvark)
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